Chinese vent anger over the internet during Uighur clashes

Patriotic Chinese have unleashed their fury on the internet over the ethnic
clashes in the Muslim region of Xinjiang.

In Urumqi - the centre of the ethnic conflict - and in several other cities in Xinjiang province the internet has been cut for two days in order to maintain public order and stop rumours from spreading.

But China's most popular internet portals and forums have carried a stream of abuse from Chinese directed at Uighur Muslims, the ethnic minority at the heart of the unrest in the country's far West.

"Destroy the conspiracy, strike hard against these saboteurs, and strike even more fiercely than before," said a commentator named Chang Qing on the Sina.com portal.

"The blood debt will be repaid. Han compatriots unite and rise up," said another commentator on Baidu, a search engine.

However, the more extreme posters were forced to play a cat-and-mouse game with internet censors, who busily deleted provocative posts.

Other posters appealed for Chinese to understand the complaints of the Uighurs, who believe they have been marginalised economically.

"If your family members have no rights, no power, are discriminated against and made fun of, not only will your family collapse, you will already have sown the seeds of hatred," wrote one web user.

There are fears that the spread of false information across the internet helped to fuel the riots in Urumqi, which continued into a third day.

Around 10,000 angry Han Chinese took to the streets armed with clubs and machetes to extract vengeance against the Uighurs, who they blame for inciting China's deadliest race riots for decades.

Li Zhi, the local Communist Party secretary, said: "We cut Internet connection in some areas of Urumqi in order to quench the riot quickly and prevent violence from spreading to other places."

However, the swirl of accusations continued to be spread by word of mouth, mobile phones and television reports.

The authorities said they are investigating the use of several pro-Uighur websites to fan anger in Urumqi. Wild rumours about an incident in Guangdong last month, when two Uighurs were killed by Han Chinese factory workers, appear to be responsible for much of the anger.

One 19-year-old Uighur woman said she had heard that 600 Uighur men had been butchered and 400 women raped. "Our menfolk would never forgive this," she said.

On Twitter, various posters in China argued whether a selective censorship of news in Xinjiang would have a calming effect on the situation, or whether it would breed further distrust of the government.